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Subject: RE: AW: AW: [dita] Groups - DITA Proposed Feature #12021: Nesting sections (12021.html) uploaded


 
>>I agree with you that the proposal name is confusing, and hopefully
that might help to clarify things

Sheesh! My brain was working faster than I could type:  What I meant to
say was that by changing the proposal name might help to clarify things.

Hopefully, this clarifies my clarification.

Jim

================
Jim Earley
XML Architect/Consultant
Flatirons Solutions
4747 Table Mesa Drive
Boulder, CO 80301

Voice: 303.542.2156
Fax:   303.544.0522
Cell:  303.898.7193

Yahoo.IM: jmearley
MSN.IM: jearley22@hotmail.com

jim.earley@flatironssolutions.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Earley, Jim 
Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 10:34 AM
To: 'Eliot Kimber'; dita
Subject: RE: AW: AW: [dita] Groups - DITA Proposed Feature #12021:
Nesting sections (12021.html) uploaded

Eliot,

I agree with you that the proposal name is confusing, and hopefully that
might help to clarify things .  It may also help if I add some
additional content related to the fact that DITA already has a mechanism
for supporting nested formal (titled) content in the form of nested
topics, and that this proposal is clearly about adding containers for
organizing content, which has the out-of-the-box benefit for conref and
conditional processing and is a welcome structural component for
enabling specializations that have a nested structural requirement.   

Thanks,

Jim

================
Jim Earley
XML Architect/Consultant
Flatirons Solutions
4747 Table Mesa Drive
Boulder, CO 80301

Voice: 303.542.2156
Fax:   303.544.0522
Cell:  303.898.7193

Yahoo.IM: jmearley
MSN.IM: jearley22@hotmail.com

jim.earley@flatironssolutions.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Eliot Kimber [mailto:ekimber@reallysi.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 10:13 AM
To: dita
Subject: Re: AW: AW: [dita] Groups - DITA Proposed Feature #12021:
Nesting sections (12021.html) uploaded

On 10/30/07 10:16 AM, "Michael Priestley" <mpriestl@ca.ibm.com> wrote:

> OK - so for legacy content that has not been chunked into topics, they
> still want to enforce the one topic per file constraint they have
decided
> on, but without rewriting the content to match?
> 
> The obvious option within the architecture is to combine the
"senseless
> small crumbs" into one file for authoring, until it is ready to split
out
> properly.

A policy of exactly one file per topic is not an appropriate or
sustainable
policy for the simple reason that DITA requires that you use nested
topics
for certain content patterns. Because of this, you cannot state the
policy
this strictly.

What you can do is say that each *standalone* topic is its own file.

That is, while abstractly we think of a topic as a standalone unit of
information, the syntactic constraints that DITA imposes require that
you
sometimes use nested topics for content that is clearly not standalone.

Thus the reality is that there are "standalone" topics and "dependent"
topics. Dependent topics should almost never be separate documents while
standalone topics should almost always be separate documents as a matter
of
good data management practice. [But note that there valid exceptions to
both
rules.]

I agree very strongly with Michael that topics should not nest.

I originally had the same reaction as others in thinking that sections
should be allowed to nest (you can check the mail archives). But upon
further reflection I came to realize that everything you want to do with
nested sections can be done with nested topics and you avoid the very
real
danger of putting a whole document in a single topic body.

In short, DITA currently says that a topic is really the smallest atomic
unit of content organization. Once you accept that, then lots of things
become easier.

Until you accept this you will likely be very frustrated.

Having said all that, I do like the current "nested section" proposal
(which
should really be renamed to something like "generic containers" or
something). There is definitely a need to be able to organize things
within
a topic body or section as outlined in the proposal. But I also agree
that
these containers should be clearly understood to not be arbitrarily
titled
divisions but organizational aids.

Cheers,

E.

-- 
W. Eliot Kimber
Senior Solutions Architect
Really Strategies, Inc.
"Bringing Strategy, Content, and Technology Together"
Main: 610.631.6770
www.reallysi.com
www.rsuitecms.com

Sent using the Microsoft Entourage 2004 for Mac Test Drive.



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